Public interest groups say, on average, more than 850
billion gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage is dumped into U.S. waterways each year. Notifying the public of these events is sporadic, but one city has started to tell the public of when—and where—overflows occur. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
Public interest groups say, on average, more than 850 billion gallons of
untreated or partially treated sewage is dumped into U.S. waterways each
year. Notifying the public of these events is sporadic, but one city has
started to tell the public of when — and where — overflows occur. The
GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:
Federal guidelines say officials need to notify the public of sewage
overflows, but the rules are vague… and sometimes not followed.
Kevin Shafer is executive director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan
Sewage District. In a somewhat unusual move, it’s set up an online
map of area waterways that will highlight where, exactly, sewage is
dumped into the water.
Shafer says, in the past, specific information wasn’t so easy to get.
“We would notify the Public Health Department and then they would
notify everyone that there’d been an overflow. We never really
pinpointed the location, unless someone from the media or general public
called.”
Shafer says people should avoid areas where overflows have occurred
because of bacteria and viruses that could be in the water.
Meanwhile, some states in the Great Lakes region are working on
updating notification requirements about sewage overflows.
For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.